Tracking the mind during reading via eye movements: comments on Kliegl, Nuthmann, and Engbert (2006)

R. Kliegl, A. Nuthmann, and R. Engbert reported an impressive set of data analyses dealing with the influence of the prior, present, and next word on the duration of the current eye fixation during reading. They argued that outcomes of their regression analyses indicate that lexical processing is distributed across a number of words during reading. The authors of this comment question their conclusions and address 4 different issues: (a) whether there is evidence for distributed lexical processing, (b) whether so-called parafoveal-on-foveal effects are widespread, (c) the role of correlational analyses in reading research, and (d) problems in their analyses because they use only cases in which words are fixated exactly once.     

Driving after use of alcohol and marijuana in college students.

Driving after use of marijuana is almost as common as driving after use of alcohol in youth (P. M. O'Malley & L. D. Johnston, 2003). The authors compared college students' attitudes, normative beliefs and perceived negative consequences of driving after use of either alcohol or marijuana and tested these cognitive factors as risk factors for substance-related driving. Results indicated that youth perceived driving after marijuana use as more acceptable to peers and the negative consequences as less likely than driving after alcohol use, even after controlling for substance use. Results of zero-inflated Poisson regression analyses indicated that lower perceived dangerousness and greater perceived peer acceptance were associated with increased engagement in, and frequency of, driving after use of either substance. Lower perceived likelihood of negative consequences was associated with increased frequency for those who engage in substance-related driving. These results provide a basis for comparing how youth perceive driving after use of alcohol and marijuana, as well as similarities in the risk factors for driving after use of these substances.     

On the validity and utility of discriminating among impulsivity-like traits

The ability to make precise distinctions among related personality constructs helps clarify theory and increases the utility of clinical assessment. In three studies, the authors evaluated the validity of distinctions among four impulsivity-like traits: sensation seeking, lack of planning, lack of persistence, and urgency (acting rashly when distressed). Factor analyses indicated that lack of planning and lack of persistence are two distinct facets of one broader trait, whereas urgency and sensation seeking are both very modestly related to each other and to the planning/persistence measures. The authors developed interview assessments of each, and multitrait, multimethod matrix results indicated clear convergent and discriminant validity among the constructs. The distinctions among them were useful: The traits accounted for different aspects of risky behaviors. Sensation seeking appeared to relate to the frequency of engaging in risky behaviors, and urgency appeared to relate to problem levels of involvement in those behaviors.     

Visual word recognition by bilinguals in a sentence context: evidence for nonselective lexical access

Recent research on bilingualism has shown that lexical access in visual word recognition by bilinguals is not selective with respect to language. In the present study, the authors investigated language-independent lexical access in bilinguals reading sentences, which constitutes a strong unilingual linguistic context. In the first experiment, Dutch-English bilinguals performing a 2nd language (L2) lexical decision task were faster to recognize identical and nonidentical cognate words (e.g., banaan-banana) presented in isolation than control words. A second experiment replicated this effect when the same set of cognates was presented as the final words of low-constraint sentences. In a third experiment that used eyetracking, the authors showed that early target reading time measures also yield cognate facilitation but only for identical cognates. These results suggest that a sentence context may influence, but does not nullify, cross-lingual lexical interactions during early visual word recognition by bilinguals.